Ryan Braun - NL MVP

I'm tired of Milwaukee media bias.

 

I must have missed the memo. Care to show your work?

Me, I'll still take the guy in the better lineup.

 

"Blown to hell" is quite a bit of an exaggeration. I'd be more inclined to say that it's been shown to have a smaller effect than many would assume.

There have been a lot of studies on the subject, comparing batters in protected and non-protected plate appearances over as large of a sample as they can come up with. The different studies all use different definitions of "protected" but generally come to the same conclusion.

The studies all show the same rough pattern: Batters who are protected are a little more likely to walk and a little more likely to strike out. In at-bats where they don't walk or strike out, and show roughly the same hit and power production.

It's definitely a real effect.

 

http://crashburnalley.com/2011/09/20/the-myth-of-hunter-pences-protection/

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/unfiltered/?p=1042

 

I don't mind people arguing Kemp over Braun, but the idea that Braun plays bad defense needs to die and now.

Too many people remember him butchering third base and have carried that bias into assessing his left field defense, which has been fine.

Of course, this MVP award was never going to be about defense, so I'm not sure why its brought up anyway.

Also, Braun had a great September to lift the Brewers to the division title. There's something to be said for that when considering MVP.

 

I believe what I said was "mediocre." I wouldn't quibble with a description like "average" either.

More important is that offense from a LF is less valuable than offense from a CF.

 

This is pretty accurate. Braun is by no means a good LFer though. His angles are pretty damn bad. He has a good arm and speed, but still needs to learn how to play the position. His numbers from 2010 to 2011 were MUCH improved defensively, but neither one of these guys is good defensively. Kemp should not have won a GG and Braun finishing 2nd is pretty bad. You'd be hard pressed to find a CF in the NL who plays better defense than Carlos Gomez, but there's no way in hell he's ever getting an award.

I welcome the argument over who should have won MVP. I think Kemp deserved it and I think Braun did too. I don't welcome people saying Braun winning is a "joke," claiming the two weren't close and acting as if Corey Hart won it.

 

They weren't close. That's not a reflection on Braun's season. Kemp's season was the best NL season since the Bonds PED boom years, and only Albert Pujols has had a couple of seasons that I would have described as close to Kemp's.

Braun and Kemp were virtually tied as the best offensive players in the league, and Kemp gets a slight nod offensively because of his home park.

The last time an NL player led the league in offensive WAR while playing an up-the-middle defensive position? 1995 Craig Biggio. The last time before that was Craig Biggio in 1985.

Braun's season would be an MVP year a lot of years. This year, it just didn't happen to be close to the most valuable season the NL has seen in almost a decade.

 

Well I'm tired of going circles. I think it was close. You think it was an outrageous injustice to the universe. 20 of 32 voters are closer to my opinion than yours. So I guess the world has just gone mad.

 

No. A lot of people just don't understand baseball value as well as they think they do. I wouldn't call that "mad." Just par for the course.

 

Tango: http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/pitching-around-batters

Bradbury: http://www.sabernomics.com/sabernomics/index.php/2004/09/the-protection-externality-it-doesnt-exist/

Carroll: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/unfiltered/?p=1042

These studies are all a few years old, but the writers are all pretty heavy hitters in the sabermetrics community. So, hey, there's your lineup protection.

From Tango:

EDIT: Whoops, didn't read all the way down the page to see the BP study was already posted.